"Vodafone Inks $1.5 Billion Microsoft Deal for AI, Cloud, and IoT"

Vodafone has entered a 10-year partnership with Microsoft, investing $1.5 billion to bring AI, digital, enterprise, and cloud services to over 300 million customers in Europe and Africa. The deal includes utilizing Microsoft's Azure OpenAI and Copilot technologies, transitioning to Azure cloud services, and Microsoft becoming an equity investor in Vodafone's managed IoT platform. Vodafone's CEO sees this as an opportunity to accelerate digital transformation for business customers, particularly small and medium-sized companies, with Microsoft's AI capabilities enhancing customer service and IoT assets addressing sustainability needs.